Charlemagne Palestine | Interview

May 31, 2002

Sensual, physical and visceral music trance
interview by Daniel Varela (June 2002)
A long neglected musician, composer, performer and visual artist, Charlemagne
Palestine is only recently recognized as a driving force in experimental music
scene. Through many years of his recordings have been so difficult to obtain
and his performances involving long sound masses could be heard only as an obscure
story-telling. His early work with carillon and electronic sustained drones
has given place to his better known piano work in the seventies, concerts in
which many times Palestine bleed his own hands after an exhilarating playing
technique. After years of retirement doing visual installations and traveling,
the nineties has been more friendly with Palestine. Many young musicians value
his work and some small independent record labels are particularly diligent
with remarkable releases of his work. This interview was done in Barcelona,
in November 2000 during LEM festival of experimental music. Many quotes will
drive interested people to many other items Palestine- related.

Q: I read about your concept of "resonant" music (1), rather than
"minimal" music. Under the label "minimal", we can see very
different expressions. Could you reflect on this?

For me, some people started to use the word "minimal music" in the
seventies about music like mine and I've never thought that it was minimal.
I've always thought that my music is about trance... like to be in a trance
state. As my voice resonates in certain places, my pieces depend on a definite
architecture, so for me, I agree with the question of respecting a "wider
concept." Sometimes my pieces are very dense with sound and they are not
minimal at all. But it's true that sometimes, the pieces have a very long duration
and some people say that they hear very little in the music and other people
say they hear very much in my music. So, it's very much up to the listener to
decide... some people think it's minimal music and others think that it's "maximal"
music, which is the opposite.

Q: A good example is your piano music. Could you tell me about the principles
behind your piano approach?

My piano music came about when I was a ringer in a Bell Tower in New York
(2a,b). Also, I was using synthesizers around that time, with the oscillators
making pure tones (3, 4, 5) and I had decided that the piano was finished for
me. I enjoyed Debussy and jazz but as an instrument it was no longer interesting
for me until I started to use a Bosendorfer Imperial piano (6a, b, c, d) that
I had the possibility to play in 1969 and I could hear a fantastic instrument
full of overtones, resonances. Also, you could hear so many things inside it,
like the sounds of the bell tower and it inspired to me to do piano music again.
My first piano music resembles impressionists like Debussy or Ravel but it's
played through four or five hours including some little arpeggios and played
over and over again in thousands of different ways... for many hours. Later
on, I began to see that I've played the piano like a "flamenco guitar"
that many overtones could change and the music that came out had a density and
verticality - thanks to the overtones - which was extraordinary. I've started
to do my strumming (7,8) technique which is basically a kind of "flamenco"
playing of the instrument but by holding down the sustain pedal while playing
in this way, it can bring out an enormous amount of different textures within
the same tones. It's become more and more complex in the last few years. Since
the Bosendorfer has an octave lower - nine tones - than any other piano, I've
played these nine tones and it's possible to hear it like an airplane engine,
or like some sort of "extreme machines" from an inferno (9, 10)...
and so, that's my piano!

Q: Your interest in overtones is also very remarkable in your organ worksâ€¦
How did you start with the organ? Is it since the same period?

With the organâ€¦ I also started that a very long time ago. I love the
instrument, it's big, it's monstrous and it's (used and heard) in fantastic
spaces like churches. That's also if you see the churches not only as religious
places and if you don't see the churches as places only to make sounds. These
instruments with enormous pipes - sometimes with thousands of pipes- interests
me so much: having the thousands of pipes as oscillators. You have thousands
of sounds at the same time! In an organ, you can play many tones at one time
without a problem. So this was an instrument that was interesting to me and
I made many pieces with sustaining tones.

I realized that if you keep the tones down and you have many different pitches
that were slightly different, "out of tune" with each other, they
start to beat and shimmer and you hear it as if someone else is playing the
organ. You think that you're hearing someone playing incredible melodies, harmonies
and rhythms but they're not! It's the organ playing itself! I developed music
especially for the organ. I chose the tones but the organ plays itself and it's
fantastic. People think that they are hearing or seeing hundreds of hands moving
across the instrument and playing melodies, harmonies and rhythms but nothing
is being played by hand... It's played by the air, the pipes and the tones in
that place. It's an incredible phenomena and that's my "organ story"!
(11, 12, 13)

Q: In addition to the instruments used, your performances seem very connected
to ritual elements (14, 15). Do you have a particular interest or linkage with
some religious tradition or ethnic heritage?

I felt so lonely in the Western contemporary music scene. It's very cold,
analytical and so it's not existential. It's atheistic, especially the early
contemporary music that I've heard, like some Stockhausen and post-Webern music.
I felt the desire to bring a certain kind of religious ritual into it without
the religious domain. I come from a Jewish religious background. I like the
smell of my Kretek Indonesian cigarettes. I like to wear a special uniform when
I perform: I wear a hat, I put out many candles, I decorate the instruments.
For me, it's like a condiment where music or any kind of performances could
be done. I like to make it sacred, which means that it's not necessarily Christian,
nor Jewish or Hindu. It only resembles aspects of primitive people when they
make any situation connected with the sacred. It's not particularly ethnically
related to any culture or religious tradition because I like them all.

I like the (use of) candles in all kind of cultures. I like flowers when they're
used in sacred ceremonies. I like incense or things that smell special in rituals.
I like the clothing used for rituals and I like all the special eating or drinking
used as part of ceremonies. When I play certain piano pieces of mine, I like
to have my cognac or sometimes, certain whiskies or some wine- they are very
important. Some people ask me "What does this have do with Western contemporary
music?" Well, I want another kind of culture and departing that, I'm inventingit.
I have the right to change it! I found universities to be very cold kind of
places, where the people only perform music and everybody is serious and there
is no alcohol and it's no fun and nobody gets excited. You can't screamâ€¦
I found it too boring and so I created a world with my animals, my whiskies,
my alcohols, my friends and my music.

I don't see how the form is more important. It's certainly more about sensual
and physical and visceral, and for me, it touches that thing ethnic and religious
and contemporary art and music can't. It doesn't have this power.

Q: And in this context, how do the Teddy bears and all the stuffed animals
fit in? Sometimes, they resemble ancient totems from different cultures.

I like all animals, sometimes I like elephants, like Ganesh - which is the
Hindu elephant god. We have bears, we have dogs, cats, and I like these spirits
working with me. Also, I found problems with visual arts and sound arts: it's
cold, self-analytical, without soul. It's for that reason that many people interested
in minimal music tell me that I'm a crazy guy going around with my stuffed animalsâ€¦
but these animals have a real presence! (16, 17) When you are a child, the reason
you are given these animals is because it's the child's first contact with some
kind of a spirit that will be part of the real world and it's a question of
trust and contact. When a mother and father are going to work, a child is left
with these presences... like sound can be a presence. Also, when a child is
left with a heartbeat, it's something like that of an electrical metronome that
resembles the heartbeat of the mother. The child is very upset without it- they
need the sound of the heartbeat. A stuffed animal is a kind of creature that
is very small-sized and that thing involves a sense of security and power. You
talk to them when you're a child - and I still talk to them - and this is a
fundamental contact. I took this idea, feeling or reality to its extreme...
I'm very extreme in the music that I've created, like the rituals that go with
that particular position. I have with my wife a house full of animals, including
stuffed animals that were abandoned. It's the only thing that we have in the
house and we talk to themâ€¦ and they talk to us. So, it's a whole way to
see the world.

Q: Another artist working with strong ritual aspects related to music is Hermann
Nitsch. Also, he has done a very important cycle of organ works with plenty
of overtone masses.

He does very beautiful organ pieces (18), so he had another intention than
my pieces. I have a funny story about him. In 1974, we were both invited to
perform our work for the opening of the art fair in Paris. I performed with
piano and he did one of his ritual rooms with cows, cut- ups, blood, etc. (19)
and Le Monde- the French newspaper- the next day made a mistake and they put
my name to his work. So they said " the group (sic) Charlemagne Palestine
cut some animals in a ritual formâ€¦" in a full page! Hermann was really
angry! After a week, they put in a correction notice that they made a mistake
and the retraction was in the back of the newspaper. But the damage was enormous-
the original note was an entire page!

Since then, any time that I go to Paris, I'm asked about how my (ritual rooms)
work is doing, so in fact, they think that Hermann Nitsch is in action. Also
then, I'm not Charlemagne Palestine, I'm Hermann Nitsch!!

Q: A frequently underrated area of your work is your vocal music, but I could
be reading that this aspect comes from long time ago. Can you comment on this?

I started singing during my childhood. In fact, I come to music by singing.
I've seen that in the synagogue, there's a very special kind of singing (20,
21, 22), long singing that could be for four or five hours on special holidays.
The man sings and the choir gives responses and sometimes, the chant is a kind
of weeping. That is the basis of my approach to vocal music (23). The singing
is so common in Jewish music, like in Russian music. When you hear a real baritone,
it's almost a sacred moment in the Jewish liturgy as in some moments of Russian
music in which the most deep bass voice sings the most tender parts of the music.
It's a remarkable aspect of the Christian-Russian tradition (24). That's is
one of my singing styles. I've studied with Pandit Pran Nath (25) for some time
and with an Indonesian singer and I like it so muchâ€¦ I'm very influenced
by Indonesian singing. I like many kinds of singing. I like it when people sing,
in any culture. This hits me, especially when children or when old people sing.
It's incredible!

Q: Alter many years of poor documentation of your music, it seems that many
young people have a growing interest in your work - including musicians coming
from a rock music background. What do you think about this?

I'm always taking things, and every day is a new day for me. I feel that always
I can make something different or even that I could take things that I've never
done before. I like to work with people of the new generation: it's really interesting
for me to work with Pan Sonic, Scanner or Thomas KÃ¶ner. I've played with
Rhys Chatham but I've never played with Glenn Branca. They know that I haven't
played for many years and they take some of my concerts as a big inspiration.
I stop playing for some time and when people asked me to play my music, I got
angry and I didn't touch an instrument for almost fifteen years (26a,b). When
I came back, this new generation had taken some of my musical elements and created
a new language. For them, this is a very natural language and they knew that
I was doing. For these people, the idea of sound continuum come from synthesizers
and now you can hear these people in many clubs, in radio or even in a car!

I'm very happy that all these people are experimenting and I love to play
with them because they love sound. They hear my music better than any other
people of my own generation: they know exactly what things to hear in my music.
More people play with me, I'm open to play with more people. When I played with
Pan Sonic (27, 28), I've seen that they concentrated very hard. We didn't rehearse
before the concert we did and it was fantastic!

People like Lee Ranaldo, Branca, Mark Webber... I've never played with him
but he has dedicated a piece to me! It's great and I'm glad to be useful too!
I think in (terms of) music all the time. I think that it's not like making
a sculpture or making drawings. Sometimes a collector buys it or eventually
you go to a museum and some people look at it. A plastic work of art only needs
one supporter and then, it has a reason for being. But music needs to be useful
in a larger social level and that's not so easy and that's what I think about
the music I made. Many people think that it's useless and that's very painful
to hear, but now it seems to be useful for the young generation. That's important,
so I'm very happy.

Q: It's remarkable that some small record labels are committed to rediscovering
your works (29), as with other musicians from your generation. I mean the work
of labels like Italian Alga Marghen or Organ of Corti from California releasing
archive materials or it comes to my mind the long neglected work by Angus MacLise
(30).

I love SchÃ¶nberg, but not all the crap!! Thousands of pieces of post-Webern
crap! So many records in the world and hardly any of our works! I propose only
hundred and fifty records of post-Webern crap and hundred and fifty more from
people like us! It's great to see these releases: Angus MacLise was a friend
and Cortical Foundation released one of my organ records. They also released
the records that Terry Riley made in California and they're great! Of course,
many of these small labels have no money but they do it!

We have my archive recordings for Alga Marghen (31). I'm preparing new piano
recordings for Christoph Heemann's label soon as a double album made in the
new Sonnabend Gallery and a carillon record for Staalplaat in Holland. Thanks
to this, I'll have ten more discs in the next two years. I'll have near ten
discs after twenty years!!

6a) The Boesendorfer's lowest 'normal' note (A) is right in the centre of
the soundboard, while on the Steinway, the lowest note is much nearer the edge
of the board. Steinways sound pretty murky in the last two or three notes, while
the Boesendorfer is clean-sounding right down to the lowest A. The extra notes
make the ordinary notes sound better. They must also resonate when the pedal
is on. Boesendorfers have a much thinner and lighter case, apparently with the
idea of projecting more sound dowm the concert hall, and less towards the pianist.
Dyer,J. Mon. 17 Aug 1998. Message to Mechanical Music Digest Archives. http://mmd.foxtail.com/index.html

6b) BÃ¶sendorfer has been making hand-crafted pianos in Vienna since 1828.
The "Imperial" model is seven inches longer than most full-size concert
instruments and has nine extra keys in the bass. The "extra notes"
were originally added as an experiment when composer-pianist Ferruccio Busoni
asked Ludwig BÃ¶sendorfer to make a special piano with a low "C"
to simulate a 32-foot organ pipe. Busoni used this instrument for his famous
piano transcriptions of the Bach organ repertoire, and BÃ¶sendorfer permanently
adopted the new design because of its added depth and richness of sound. AcaMedia.
News for the Smith College Community. Sept 25, 1997 http://www.smith.edu/acamedia/home,html#anchor76820

18) "In 1968 I got a harmonium as a wedding present from my wife. From
then on I sat at the harmonium and played almost exclusively long notes that
never wanted to end. I tried to listen into the infinite structure of stars,
into the unimaginable spaces searching for sound. The joy of beautiful colors,
of (almost intoxicating) combinations of sound was most important but at the
same time it was carried by the almost presumptuous task to conjure, to sing
of, and measure the extent of cosmic space. the course of the stars were to
be put to sound." - Hermann Nitsch, Depth of the Universe.

From 1984-89, 40 volumes of Hermann Nitsch playing harmonium were recorded
in Prinzendorf Castle and issued privately by O.M. Theater Verlag in an edition
of 15 copies in 1990. This series is an open door to experience the long drones
and overtones in Prinzendorf. Includes photography of the cosmos from the Hubble
Telescope courtesy of NASA. Hermann Nitsch, born in 1938 in Vienna, rose to
notoriety during the 1960s as a result of his actions in his hometown, and later
in Germany, the USA and Italy. In 1971 he was able to purchase Prinzendorf Castle,
the home of his Orgies Mysteries Theater, where he has staged his 6-Day-Play,
his magnum opus that required 40 years of research and preparation. One of Nitsch's
central concepts, realized thru O. M. Theater actions, was adapted from Freud
and Breuer: that of abreaction ... which leads to what Nitsch refers to as 'primal
excess'. It is worth quoting Nitsch on this: "In abreaction ... not only
are the individual's blockades released, but] also the floodgates are opened
to the immeasurable. from bottomless abysses there streams a vitality that amounts
to the metaphysical, procreative rage of creation.' Apart from his actions,
Nitsch has gained international acclaim as an artist and is a prolific writer.
His writings include not only play texts and scores, but also theoretical and
speculative philosophical works. The complete Harmoniumwerk is being issued
in a series of 2CD sets in editions of 500." - Hermann Nitsch, Oct. 1986.
From the Forced Exposure Catalogue.

19) Hermann Nitsch's own website

20) Segal,E.: The Jewish Cantillation of the Bible. Available at: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Cantillation/Chanting.html

22) The Chazzan (or Cantor) and his Cantillation. Entry in History of Jewish
Music. http://ubmail.ubalt.edu/~pfitz/play/ref/Histjew.htm#Jewish_3_Cantor

23) Karenina (on Durtro label) was conceived in March 1997 in Paris at Galerie
Donguy as a work to be played during a retrospective exhibition of his sculpture
and photographs. The work is for his Falsetto voice and Indian Harmonium. In
this work the use of the name 'Karenina' and also other words and sounds from
the unconscious trance magical sources. The male falsetto has a very special
sacred significance. As a young singer in Synagogue music the singing Rabbi
or Cantor as he is called sings only a few times a year in a falsetto and only
for the most sincere and sacred declarations. The Indian harmonium and the organesque
sound in general dates from Charlemagne's earliest musical outings and were
inspired by Herman Helmholtz's book On The Sensations Of Tone." Forced
Exposure catalogue.

24) Holland,S.: The Tonal System of the Orthodox Church (2002). At http://www.orthodox.net/nvalaam/tonehist.htm